The Warm-Up: It was you all along, Europa League

Only once the dust has settled and the heart begun to mend can one conduct a proper post-mortem on a failed relationship. There’s no point doing it in the heat of the moment; you’ll only end up blaming the wrong person and then making the same mistakes again.

So it is with Arsenal and the Champions League. With the visceral agony of the break-up now firmly in the rear-view mirror, both parties can look at the thing with clear minds and see that, for all the passion, it just wasn’t meant to be. Maybe, just maybe, the good times were actually the bad times.

It was 19 years of hurt, basically. A decade and a bit of nearlies and then the Bayern Munich era, that depressing series of springtime arguments Arsenal were always destined to lose. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and let it go, for everyone’s sake.

The reward? Arsenal have a new beau and he seems to suit them down to the ground. He may not be quite as flashy as the old guy, but he’s more attentive and they actually go back quite a way. Now, after the reunion, comes the realisation. Was it you, all this time, Europa League?

The Gunners made short work of Ostersund last night, going ahead through Nacho ‘The Hitman’ Monreal and earning a cushion when Sotirios Papagiannopoulos turned Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s cross into his own net. Mesut Ozil put the cherry on top just before the hour mark, in his first appearance in the competition in seven years.

Job done then? You have to assume so, and with a number of top sides – Napoli, Villarreal, Lazio – losing on Thursday night, Arsenal are already starting to look a bit like favourites to go on and win this thing.

Ignore the fact that that would mean a Champions League return; that’s just a minor plot twist we can deal with later. For now, the Europa League love affair is very much alive and well.

Also loving the competition: Celtic. The Hoops left it late against Zenit, but eventually found a winner when Callum McGregor slammed home with 12 minutes to go. It won’t be easy defending a 1-0 lead in St Petersburg, but they’ve got a chance.

Stand by for more Europa League stuff in the Heroes and Zeroes section, but let’s also just take a moment to high five Nice and Lokomotiv Moscow for acting out an ersatz Merseyside derby on the Cote d’Azur last night. The Ligue 1 side took control with a Mario Balotelli brace (You’ll Never Walk Alone, etc etc), only for their Russian visitors to come roaring back, courtesy of a hat-trick from one-time Everton midfielder Manuel Fernandes. Bravo.

You know what The Warm-Up loves? Spinning the big roulette wheel of opinion to get a fresh perspective on one of the top clubs, preferably when they’re living through some sort of boring mini-crisis. This usually yields hugely exciting results for Arsenal especially (Ooh, just what does Oleh Luzhny think about Jack Wilshere’s positioning at corners?), but it’s also becoming a Manchester United thing too, which can only be good news for snarky news round-ups like this one.

Anyway. Yesterday, the little silver ball stopped on… Paul Ince! Hi Paul! Been a while! What’s that? You’ve got a red-hot opinion potato you need to hand off to us? Go right ahead!

“If what’s being said about Pogba is true, that he regrets joining United, then I’d be disappointed, but not surprised,” said the former Red Devils midfielder.

“I can understand why Pogba might feel irritated with the position Mourinho currently has him playing in. The signals that are coming from Pogba is that he’s not happy and if he doesn’t feel like he fits in, then I could see him leaving in the summer.”

Now that’s just slightly too many ‘ifs’ for The Warm-Up to really regard this as any kind of inside information, but naturally that did not stop it being reported as such. Which, of course, is exactly why that big roulette wheel is so beloved of the football internet. Join us for the next spin in a few days’ time.

The Warm-Up isn’t sure exactly who this journalist is, but if he was on Football Manager he’d definitely have a bravery rating of 20.

Taking a Manchester United shirt to a Chelsea press conference: plucky.

Flat-out ignoring the pleas of the press officer: not for the faint-hearted.

Persisting in the face of Antonio Conte’s withering death stare: WE NEED TO GO TO THE BATHROOM NOW.

As if Conte needed another reason to convene with his inner existentialist, Michy Batshuayi scored two more goals for Borussia Dortmund last night. The Bundesliga giants were 2-1 down to Atalanta with an hour played, only for the striker – curiously unloved at Stamford Bridge before moving to the Westfalenstadion on loan – to slam home an equaliser and poach a fine injury-time winner. That’s now five goals in three games for football’s biggest Batman fanatic.

This just in from the Department of Unconscionable Filth:

"Two of Bennell’s victims were later diagnosed with a blood condition that can be brought about by sexual contact. Bennell claimed at one point he had studied child psychology. Boys who turned him down were dropped from the team – ostracised, bullied and told they were in danger of losing their dream and letting down their families.

"None of his victims came forward for years out of shame, fear and embarrassment and, in many cases, because they thought it would ruin their chances of becoming footballers. Then a 13-year-old boy, terrified he might have Aids, told his parents what had happened to him on a trip to Florida and, finally, Bennell’s luck ran out."

This piece on Barry Bennell, by The Guardian’s Daniel Taylor, is a harrowing read, but an absolutely essential one.

Christmas and new year have come and gone, but a glance at the calendar reveals that we are still very much no-rest-for-the-wicked season. The European stuff is on pause for the briefest moment, but we’re straight back into the FA Cup, with not one but TWO Friday-night matches.

Chelsea vs Hull City is your TV fixture, boasting the secondary attraction of Conte’s ongoing performance piece about the pernicious effects of anger in the workplace, and there’s also Leicester vs Sheffield United.